Maggie's Farm

In fact the previous Labour Government had already begun to introduce some privatization.
There has always been the private option here in Britain. Back in the 1970s the Unions fought against it. In the 1980s Mrs Thatcher encouraged employer health insurance and privatized dentistry (jeopardizing Britain's world class reputation in this field of medical science).
One nasty element here: If your doctor prescribes a medicine and your Local Health Trust says they can't afford it, if you pay for it yourself all your free medical care will be withdrawn. I think one of your comedians, Tina Fey maybe, did a sketch about this, but you all thought it was a little far-fetched.

Actually Kath it's more the other way around. Everyone uses a NHS doctor for general health, but the wealthy and the minority of the insured can consult a NHS surgeon privately.
So critics of private medicine in Britain have a point. The wealthy and insured are operated on in a public facility by a surgeon whose education was subsidized or perhaps paid for entirely by the public purse.
The advantage the wealthy and insured enjoy is not the quality of the care but the speed with which it is delivered. Socialized medicine has to be rationed and in Britain it's rationed by waiting lists. Mostly the waiting lists are for chronic conditions, such as hip replacements, but in some cases the wait for surgery can be the difference between life and death.